Advent in Verse

Working on the sermon for this coming Sunday I came across the poem below that references the passage for the sermon, Matthew 2.1-18. The poet is a man with a saint's name, Thomas More.

Here is the poem:

Matthew 2.1-18
Herod the Great

I - Audience

I hate Medo-Persians. Always have. Always will.
But I receive them anyway
International relations.

Send them in.

Magi this time. Not even real envoys. Sky mystics.

II - Tremor

Ruler of these parts, we’ve come to celebrate the birth of your son.

What?

Where is the child born King of the Jews?

Who?

The one
Born
King

III - False Teeth

Thanks for waiting.
My people tell me Bethlehem’s the place.
But tell me
When did this star first appear? Exactly?

You find the boy
Then we will all come down.
Royalty deserves recognition.

IV - Fury

Another route?
When?
Don’t you know anything more?

Well then how about this?
Kill every boy
No, wait.
Kill every child yet to reach its second year.
Use your imagination

And if anything more than weeping is heard it will be your head too.
Royalty deserves recognition.

The God Blank

I stumbled across a book published in 1970 by… of all things… a Major in the Salvation Army in Britain who turned out to be a spiritual rabble rouser. Even though he wrote Secular Evangelism in a personal capacity rather than as an officer in the Army it appears he immediately took serious fire from those in charge.

Why? For simpsuggesting that the Salvation Army and the larger church might be failing to speak to people outside of the community of faith with anything approaching intelligibility. What is particularly striking to me is how clearly he seems to be describing the spiritual state of things today (in 2007) as he chronicles what he was facing forty years ago.

In one place, early on, he describes what he calls “a God-blank.” He writes “in the lives of most modern young people there is a God-blank… the whole subject of God was beside the point.” He goes on the contrast to his own youth where while he didn’t pursue God, he had a deep intrinsic awareness that God was there to be dealt with later.

I find myself much like Fred Brown (the Salvation Army Major in question). God was powerfully present in my world from day one—to be embraced, to be rejected, to be questioned, to be feared… to be dealt with in some way. And yet when I venture outside my office with its stained glass windows and rows and rows of books on faith I find more and more not excitement or animosity, not curiosity or fear, just a ‘God-blank.’

Devotion Panic

Here is a blog entry written by Sharon Falk—one of our current church leaders. Sharon gave the following as her opening reflection at the Session meeting on October 23.

Note: For those of you not familiar with Presbyterian church organization, the ‘session’ is the primary leadership group for a local congregation.

Matthew 11:28: Come to me, you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. … learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls…

Last summer a sign up sheet went around and I innocently signed up to present a devotion for this night. Recently it began to dawn on me that I would be offering the devotion at THE NEW PASTOR’S FIRST SESSION MEETING! At that point my concern about this task grew a little. For a while this week, I thought I had won a repreive because the Agenda listed Karla’s name for the devotion. But, I knew she had done it last month and that was probably false hope. Sure enough when I checked with her she said I’d better be prepared to do it. So for the last two days I’ve been tense as I thought about what I would share. I figured that for the occasion it should be something profound, very smart and very spiritual. Or maybe funny with some kind of Kevinesque spin to it - maybe a restaurant review. I got myself into a complete state of unrest - after all, my image was on the line. This would not only be my first “performance of the devotion” before the session it would be my new pastor’s first impression of me.

MY heavy burden is that I feel unacceptable alot. I have had much healing in my life in this area, but at times of extreme stress (like presenting a devotion at your new pastors first session meeting!) it rears it’s ugly head. And last night, as I stared at a blank sheet of paper, that ugly old thing was staring back at me. Then I remembered something that used to help me. When I was younger I really struggled with this problem. I was terrified of making a bad impression. But I seemed to constantly put myself into situations where there was a chance that I might slip up and someone would get a glimpse of the real and unacceptable me. Like having dinner parties. Before the event, I would agonize over the menu, the table, cleaning the house, washing the dogs, coaching my husband. Afterwards, no matter how well it went, I would beat myself up over any imperfection – the chicken was dry, the dog threw up under the table during dinner (that actually happened to me once – when I had a pastor to dinner - so that might help you understand somewhat my concern about tonight!). Anyway, it all took a lot of energy. Then I started to do this: I would imagine that Jesus was sitting in one of the chairs at my dinner table. This wasn’t a “what would jesus do” kind of thing to encourage me to behave properly. I had enough pressure there It was to relax me. I thought about how HE would treat me, what he would say to my fears, how restful it would be to have him there.

This really worked for me because the Jesus I’d encountered was about loving me, not judging me. The stories I heard as a child were of him touching untouchables, showing compassion to the weak. He called dispicable people out of trees and went to dinner at THEIR houses. He was radically accepting. And because of who I am and who I think most of us are… that is such a comfort. When I decided to become a follower of Jesus it was because I needed someone like that in my life. I deperately needed his rest.

I think real transformation comes by focusing on grace. This is certainly true in my life. I’ve learned about grace by studying the life of Jesus, but sometimes even more profoundly from interactions with his followers. When I was about five I had an elderly babysitter, Mrs. Hansen, who first told me about Jesus. She took me to church, but mainly she modeled grace. My home life was challenging and as a result I was often pretty angry. One summer afternoon I came into the house fuming. I slammed the door as hard as I could and stood there panting. I don’t remember if I’d had a fight with a friend, but I was mad. I looked up and Mrs. Hansen was standing there. She could have said “We don’t slam doors in this house, young lady” or “ Why don’t you just march off to your room and think about why you’re so angry today”. But she didn’t, she looked at me for a moment and then with extreme compassion said kindly, “Oh, Sharon.”. I remember that moment to this day because it was one of my first revelations of the nature of God. Something relaxed in me. In her voice was love, and only a desire for something better for me. That was all. That is the Jesus I invited into my life and to sit at dinner party tables with me.

So, this morning, imagining that Jesus with me at my computer, I went back to preparing for tonight. I realized that all I really want to say is I don’t WANT to come here worried about what people will think of what I say or trying to impress a new pastor or fitting in. I want to come to church to rest – to be reminded that Jesus invites us to rest in his grace. I think we all want that. There are lots of places in this world where we can go to be judged and rejected. Where we have to wear our masks to be acceptable. I think if church were a place where radically accepting grace was truly modeled we’d have people breaking down the doors to get in.

I hope for a church where we can take off our masks, our striving for approval and worth. Where we can put down our heavy burdens in front of one another, bring our most vulnerable selves, our strongest and truest opinions and throw off our image building behavior. I want to come to a church where I don’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out what is acceptable. I want a place where I can rest.

I read this definition recently: “A gracious church is a place where people can come with questions, doubts, and struggles without fear of being condemned. Where the focus is not on supplying quick and easy answers to difficult problems, but creating the space to think and explore. In the midst of our struggles, a gracious church reminds us of what really matters – how we treat those around us.”

The best times I have had are with gracious people who LAUGH when the dinner music the sound of a dog throwing up under the table. The best times are with people who don’t hide their imperfections, whose lives are messy, who don’t hesitate to argue with me and who don’t hesitate to make up with me. I really think that’s how Jesus is. My hope is that that’s how we can be for each other. That we can listen, speak the truth with love and always desire something better for each other. I think that would very restful.

Welcome John!

R&R Lists

On the Sunday morning of October 14^th I raised the issue of reconciliation or the lack thereof in our lives. I did so from the pulpit in wrestling with II Corinthians 5.17-21. This particular New Testament passage suggests that claiming to follow Jesus is a joke... unless reconciliation shows up as the main sign of transformation in our lives.

I went so far as to challenge those who managed to stay awake until the end of the sermon to pick one broken relationship in their lives and pray for glimpse of a simple step that could lead to reconciliation there. They didn’t even need to DO IT at first… simply imagine what a step toward restoration would look like.

Monday morning brought another idea: in my own life I realized it might be important to do more than pick one tense relationship. More telling for me would be a list of ALL the broken or strained relationships in my life… noting each person’s name and then ranking the level of brokenness on a scale of 1 – 5.

This numeric ranking would mean something like…

5 - absolute abhorrence, fear, or active hatred

4 – inability to be in the same room

3 – active avoidance

2 – strain that both of you are aware of

1 – superficial friendliness on my part masking underlying dislike or struggle

I consider myself to be decent in the area of relationships and generally easy to get along with, yet the more I thought, the more I realized there were too many names on my R&R list. As the old maxim goes: "Physician, heal thyself." Apparently I've got some work to do.

Water Bottle Righteousness

At some point along the way I apparently took a nap and woke up to find everyone I know packing… not a firearm but a water bottle. Picnics, board meetings, hotel rooms, gyms almost overnight seem incomplete without water bottles. Ever increasing amounts of precious shelf space at grocery stores and supermarkets are filled with H₂o in bottles that increasing look like fashion accessories.

Brands like Fiji, Poland Springs, Evian, Aquafina, and Dasani are household names, and we now pay two, three, even four times the price of a gallon of gas for something we used to get (and still can) basically for free at taps in our homes and drinking fountains everywhere else.

For many bottled water has come to represent a curious sort of righteousness in the midst of a culture fearful of contaminates and obesity. But at what cost? Creative marketing that has turned something free into a 15 billion a year market in America. That was last year. This year projections suggest we collectively will spend 16 billion.

But it is just water right? Yes… until you start to think of the huge costs of moving 1 billion water bottles we drink in a week. Charles Fishman in an article in Fast Company magazine unpacks the real costs of the water industry along with an intriguing and disturbing history of this ballooning industry that reminds me a bit of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. He notes that our billion-bottles-of-water-a-week represent a weekly convoy equivalent of 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water (which is so heavy that trucks can’t be fully loaded and still drive).

In a world where 1 in 6 people still don’t have safe and reliable drinking water, we big bottled water drinkers support an industry of “packaging and presentation” (Fishman’s words). One example is Fiji Water—the current celebrity water. Fiji ships 1 million bottles a day out of a country where half of the people don’t have a reliable drinking water for themselves.

Ironically, 25% of the water we purchase bottled is literally just tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.

Read Fishman’s article for yourself. He drills deep enough to note positives as well as negatives, but my personal commitment after a swig and swallow is to attempt to cut my bottled water consumption to just a fraction… situations where bottled is the only option. By myself I probably can’t solve the situation, but then again, I bet every drop not bottled helps.

Sock Test For God's Existence

Last night in a dream I devised a test for the existence of God. In the dream I was struggling with doubt, questioned whether God existed at all. I decided a test was in order, and settled on praying for a miracle. If God acted according to my request I felt it would be sufficient proof of the divine presence.

As the dream unfolded, I debated with myself what would be a reasonable request. I wanted a definitive miracle, but didn’t feel I should demand one of epic proportions like peace in the Middle East or a resurrection from the dead. Even a disappearing melanoma seemed too audacious to request simply as a proof of God’s existence.

In the end I settled on a curious ‘miracle.’ I decided simply to ask God to keep a pair of my navy blue dress socks from slipping down for a whole day. In the dream this seemed like it would be both (1) reasonable and (2) truly miraculous. Not long after this I woke up to wonder what prompted this particular dream and if it had any significance.

Any thoughts?

There is a postscript to the dream. When I reached in to pull a pair of socks out of my sock box this morning, the pair on top was a navy blue pair—the only navy pair with decent elastic in the tops—and they did stay up all day.

Hopelessnes And An Electric Car

I am not a activist or warrior by personality, but I am competitive… very competitive. Not that realized this about myself for years. I don’t act particularly competitive. Yet the truth is that in any situation I immediately (and often almost unconsciously) assess my ability to win or succeed, and in the past if triumph wasn’t almost guaranteed I simply didn’t even try.

I’m concerned about huge political, social, economic, and environment issues, but you won’t find me out on the picket line and I confess that I rarely write my congressional representatives. A huge part of this for me is hopelessness.

I’ve unconsciously looked at my chances to ‘win’ and then short-circuited my anger or concern because I suspected my voice wouldn’t matter. This little internal cycle kicked in again this past week when I watched a movie I’d ordered from Netflix. This particular flim strayed from my normal action/adventure or romance comedy choices; it was a documentary entitled Who Killed The Electric Car? Exactly the kind of film I'm SUPPOSED to appreciate as an thoughtful, over-educated faith leader type.

I confess it sat on the table much longer than most movies, and I almost returned it unwatched. Just the title suggested a Don-Quixote-charging-a-windmill moment.

I was right, but I was also stunned (especially given the current price of gas) at how impressive a battery-operated car could be. The movie chronicles the life, death, and apparently concerted effort to cover-up the potential a completely electric car, the GM EV1.

I was mad when I finished the movie and hopeless at what did appear to be huge economic interests that would put current profits over long-term good. Granted, this might well be only part of the story (watch the movie yourself and let me know what else I might need to consider), but my question is how do I… how do we… as individuals far from the centers of political and economic power engage in big issues without living in constant anger or hopelessness?

In the past I’ve simply avoided issues too big for me to tackle on my own (which is most of them). I’m no longer satisfied with this approach, but I know I need help discovering new ways to engage that are not dominated by anger or crippled by despair. Any ideas?

Vocation

One of the great gifts of a book is that once it is written it slips outside of time. Words written years ago can jump off a page fully alive in the present to challenge or comfort or delight. For me this has happened again and again over the years, but each time it feels new. Most recently I have Frederick Buechner to thank for something he put in print in 1973 in his book Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC.

In it he sets out to define words in fresh and personal ways and one of these words he tackles is VOCATION. His actual definition for VOCATION actually takes up several paragraphs, and includes, among other things, a discussion of its Latin root. Yet in the end it is his last sentence that dances off the page - shaping my life now.

Vocation is "the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Travel Music

Most of us listen to music. Jake Reidt and several friends that comprise the Pullman band Ether Hour make it.

Jake was part of a group of guys I've met with weekly (at least that is the idea) for the past five years before he relocated his family to Pullman to be closer to his engineering job at a leading Palouse tech company.

As much as the rest of us in the group grumbled about Jake radically shortening his daily commute (since that left a hole in our group), the choice has been a gift for Jake and his family. And one thing that has developed in the time he used to spend driving up and down 195 is music.

I drove down this past weekend for dinner with Jake and picked up the Ether Hour CD at Hastings in Pullman before driving back up. I like it a lot. And I like the community Jake and his wife Tatsu have created in Pullman - also in the space they've created in their lives.

P.S. The image on the front of the CD cover is the view off the Reidt's back deck. Travel back there is best done by tractor.

Sickbed Movies II

When it comes to sharing germs, my kids are very generous. This past week it was the sniffly-stuffy- running-nose germ and the dry-bark-sandpaper-throat bugs. I decided this was the perfect combination for a run to the video counter at Albertson's in the vain hope of finding something I've not seen that is worth seeing.

Needless to say, I failed miserably, and believe it or not, The Prince and Me II wasn't the worst of the rentals. The worst was a new release with big Hollywood box office names (Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn). It was filed under "comedy" and I was hoping for a romatic Phoenix-from-the- relationship-ashes story. It isn't.

In fact, I'd like to ruin the movie for you specifically so you don't rent it yourself. Vince and Jenny start out happy, but things get worse and worse and worse and worse.

The title isn't lying. They break up. They don't get back together. I spent last night mentally trying to rewrite the ending so I could go to sleep. I would have pulled the plug halfway through, but for the erroneous belief on my part that you can't label a film a 'comedy' without a reasonably perky ending. I was wrong. They did it.

Don't rent it.

I will share the only redemptive moment in the film right here, and you can spend two hours investing in a relationship you care about rather than watching the wheels come off one you don't. Near the end, the narcissistic and self-absorbed character played by Vaughn does come to his senses and realize that he loves his now ex-girlfriend. And he tells her this only to have her inform him she no longer feels the same way. He asks for the chance to change, to be less selfish, but she never gives it to him.

Yet rather than get angry and retreat into justification and recrimination, he tells a friend he would say the same thing again because it was true and it was the right thing to say it. That I liked... a man risking his ego and image for a relationship on the rocks.

I don't particularly like Vince Vaughn, and I despised the movie, except for the change he undergoes at the end. That seems credible because it touches on a deep truth.

50/50 relationships fail spectacularly. "Those who seek to save their lives will lose them," Jesus once said. He wasn't speaking about marriages or relationships headed that way, but what he says about scarifice applies quite well. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, the sweet spot for relationships is someplace between 100/100 or 110/110.

Focus Group Faith

I stayed up tonight to watch an episode of Studio 60. I admit Amanda Peet was part of the reason for tuning in, but the character that drew me in was Matthew Perry's.

The storyline took the ensemble cast through the week leading up to the release of their Saturday Night Live style show, and to a person the cast wrestled with the data leaked from the pre-release focus groups. Everything hung on whether people would like the show. On the show, they did.

Now I haven't seen if this show (Studio 60) about a show did as well in the actual Nielsen ratings, but the whole 'focus group' plot line stirred up some questions about my own (sometimes desperate) efforts to get good ratings.

Millions of TV viewers equate in my early life to the several hundred people in my father's Assemblies of God church in Polson, Montana. From the moment my mom, my sister, and me stepped out of our Renault 16 (horrifically ugly auto, best car seats bar none) on Sunday morning, we were on. Come to think of it, we never really were off. Boxed in at home by church members on either side (the Kleins and the Coverdales) I learned to play for ratings early.

Now I'm not sure I know how not to. How not to instinctively check each of my comments - especially as a pastor - against my sense of my audience. I've scorned politicians for years for their pursuit of poll numbers, and tonight I wonder if that is not in large part due to my own compulsion to post well.

I'm having a hard time coming up with any 'unpopular' positions I've taken in recent memory; oh, certain stands I take may be unpopular to some, but never to whoever I've determined to be my core audience. I've claimed 'faithfulness to the gospel' but now I'm questioning how to untangle that from my own personal version of 'focus group faith.'

Or find a way to truly play to an audience of one.

Selling Jesus

Long before I officially became a Minister of Word and Sacrament, I understood my primary objective in life was to sell Jesus. No one ever said it this crudely, but I figured it out. And for years now I have tried. I’ve tried to live an inspirational life. I agonized of how to defend Jesus from ridicule and dismissal. I even invented a personal cursing vocabulary so not to take in vain the name of the One whose marketing team I’d joined.

Since my ordination in the Presbyterian Church in 1994, this sales position has become all consuming. Every public moment I have tried to have on my Jesus smile, carry myself with Christ-like bearing, and look at the world with my Jesus eyes. It has been exhausting.

It has also been increasing distressing as I’ve witnessed other Jesus salesmen prance about on TV. The way so many of them hash the sales pitch make my job selling Jesus that much harder. Their best-selling books suggest Jesus is little more than a cosmic bellhop if you believe this, confess that, or pray right. Royalties from these books earn them a hefty slice of the American Dream if not a place in the Kingdom of God. But for me, these same books become just one more caveat I need to make in selling the One I’ve had to take to calling “the REAL Jesus.”

Now I’m done. Not that I no longer believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Not that I don’t believe God’s great love centered in Jesus is the key to the darkness that pools in my life and the destruction ripping apart the Middle East. I believe Jesus is.

It is just that I suspect my time would be better spent loving people that pitching a Jesus who never asked for a sales force. He asked for followers not a marketing strategy. He rejoices when we care for others without condition rather than as part of a calculated formula to rack up a sale. Abundant blessing, sacrificial love, and laughter are my job, not sales. I resign.

Leaving the Big Church Bus

I attended a conference in Seattle two weeks ago led by a guy who describes himself as an "intuitive futurist." His name is Reggie McNeal, and after working with hundreds of Christian leaders in a number of denominations, he believes the church as we know is ceasing to exist. He is not saying that God is giving up the ghost or taken an extended vacaction, but that the current institutional shape of congregations will have a more limited role in what the Holy Spirit is up to in coming years.

One statistic he shared supports his assertion that we are in the midst of a spiritual change as large as the Protestant Reformation if not larger. Spirituality remains significant in this country, but the number of people in each generational grouping to affiliate officially with organized churches is heading for the sub-basement. Here are his statistics:

Generational Percentages Connected To Churches

Seniors (born before 1925) 60+
Builders (1926 - 1945) 60+
Boomers (1946-1964) 42 - 44
Gen X (1965 - 1983) 18 - 22
Millenials (1984 - 2000) Less than 10

McNeal didn't site his source and I have yet to track it down, but if it is true, this is huge... ozone hole huge... for those thinking hard about faith.

Your thoughts on the cause of this rapid drop? Your ideas on what God is up to or how we might engage?

Stupid

We all do stupid things, but I’ve noticed how little grace and how much scorn I have for the stupidity, impulsiveness, thoughtlessness, and weakness of others. This is true even though I expect grace and understanding for my own stupidity, impulsiveness, thoughtlessness, and weakness.

Here is what hit me today: none of us set out to do something stupid. There is always some reason (possibly a horrifically bad one) for what we do. We may not be aware of the need or impulse deep inside motivates us to make the same mistake over and over again, but it must be there for… here we go again.

Back to my scorn for other’s stupidity... the very first line of the very first Psalm in the Hebrew Scriptures is the “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of MOCKERS.” Unfortunately I fear I’ve spent enough time with the mockers that I’ve got a seat with my name on it in their midst. This is not all that unlike the practice at Spencer’s Steaks and Chops of giving frequent guests a nameplate over their favorite booth, only I don't think there is any honor in seat among the MOCKERS.

Only now I’d like to publically give up my seat. I’ve felt the damage scorn does to me, even as I’ve secretly dished it out at others. Of course, I pride myself that I cover my scorn with a smile so they’ll never know. But this is a lie. I pick up theirs; they pick up mine. Most of us survive by having sensitive antenna, and I now believe I’ve caused a lot of damage with scorn over the years.

In place of scorn I’d like to try a shot at the grace I so long for myself. I need to remember that no one willfully intends to be stupid. In place of scorn I’d like to instead look for what might lead a person to do what seems to me to be so foolish or destructive, wasteful or frivolous. Not that I may ever really know, but at least then I won’t be dumping as much of my scorn into the collective well. For after all I think that very well is the same I need to go to for water.

Poetic Intrigue

A friend shared a poem with me a week ago that I find intriguing even as I muse on what it means. Here is is.

I Pick Up a Hitchhiker

After a few miles, he tells me
that my car has no engine,
I pull over, and we both get out
and look under the hood.
He’s right.
We don’t say anything more about it
all the way to California.

Jay Leeming

Conan In Mexico

Not that you can probably tell this from the picture of me hamming for the camera, but our congregation's fifteen year investment in building homes in the Tijuana slums has had a significant impact on a number of subsistence neighborhoods and a HUGE impact on the senior high students and leaders who choose to trade the rest and play of a typical Spring Break for the hard work of building a two-room house in six days.

This year I was able to be a part of one of the housing teams for several days. It was a gift, and reminds me that some of the best meals on the TRAVELING FEAST might be served in some very unexpected places.

Brideshead Revisited

I recently discovered a tape of a talk by an east coast English professor (Thomas Howard). It was a talk he gave in April of 1990 at Princeton Theological Seminary entitled “The Dilemma of the Christian Novelist in the Twentieth Century.” He suggested that America and much of the first world could be described not only as “post-Christian” but even “post-atheist” where God is not even a viable category for people to rail against. There is only a spiritual blank in many lives that cannot even be articulated.

This he suggested presents a huge challenge for writers who seek to write truth about a world that includes God. How do you talk about God in any authentic way that doesn’t sound like soap box proselytizing? Not only do people dismiss Christian faith, they no longer grasp even the categories.

Then he went on to talk about a number of brilliant writers with faith that he felt struggled to retain God as real even as they wrote not for a Precious-Moments-Christian-Bookstore crowd but for the broader public. He discussed Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor at some length, and then mentioned another name… someone I had never read: Evelyn Waugh. Waugh turns out to be an Englishman, and Thomas in passing suggested that he wrestled most with faith in his book, Brideshead Revisited.

I went hunting and found a used copy at Second Look Books on the South Hill, and during Spring Break spent some time meeting Waugh through the ensemble of characters he creates in the book.

I found the story haunting and melancholy and the characters both winsome and offensive as their privilege and longing and selfishness slide into debauchery. Faith does burn through the book, but not as some two-dimensional Sunday School cut-out. Faith is seen by several key characters as inescapable and fearsome—both hope and haunting even to the point of torture at times.

Yet even as I try to sort through Waugh’s story personally, I would commend it to you to read. I’m troubled by the God he portrays, but the faith struggles faced by Sebastian and Julia and Charles in the story are moving and, ultimately I think, food for the journey.

Psalm 139

In high school I memorized Psalm 139 and fragments and verses from the psalm have accompanied me ever since. "O Lord you have searched and know me" and "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." "Where can I go from your presence? If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea..." Different pieces of the psalm have surfaced from my memory at different times as needed or as a surprise.

One line pulled me up short several months ago... years after I had dismissed it simply as connective content in the psalm. This line goes as follows: "You hem me in, behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me."

Until this past fall, this line evoked some vague notion of God as my mate, my protector, or even my Hip-Hop 'posse.' Talk about Trinity: he had my back, his hand on me, and was out front running interference as well. And this fit with my understanding of the psalm as a whole. It is filled with movement, and I've always attributed movement to this line as well. As I travel, my posse God has me covered.

Then I began to overhear how I was describing myself to anyone who would listen: I said I felt trapped and more than trapped: completely unable to move. And when I turned this immobility into a complaint to the divine, God whispered just one line from Psalm 139: "You hem me in behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me."

The therapist I've seen over the years would probably be relieved to know that I'm not hearing actual voices, but this line from 139 knocked me back onto my heels with all the force of personal address. And I think I now know the reason: God.

"You can't move, Kevin, because I won't let you. I have hemmed you in behind and before."

In an instant, this verse I'd merely gone through the motions to memorize became terribly clastrophobic. I was trapped because God had stopped dead immediately in front of me and was just as close behind - leaving no wiggle room - and his hand on me suddenly became heavy rather than light and reassuring.

"Why?!" I've now flung back at the heavens. "Why, God, have you so constricted my movement? Why?" And close behind this question was another: "How long has this been going on?" It is not that much of a stretch to say that this God trap had been slowly tightening around me for more than seven years.

Needless to say, this deeply disturbed me. On the one hand you could interpret such a God trap as attention. On the other, though, this immobility even if God is intimately involved is terrifying. It was as I mused on both these interpretations that another image came to mind: the picture of one of my own children in the days after they had learned to walk and run, but still had no real concept of danger. I remembered time and time again when I had to wrap my arms around one of them and not let go because where they wanted to go was out into a busy street or toward a cliff or a steep set of stairs. They screamed and fought to get free, to be able to move, but I saw what they couldn't yet see and refused to let go.

I may be mistaken, but I think this memory of holding onto my children might also be God speaking to me - God giving me a glimpse of what could true not just for my kids, but for me as his child.

"You hem me in, behind and before; you have laid your hand on me."

Someday a thank-you will probably be in order.

4th Grade Science Project

Two weeks ago one of my sons begged to enter his 4^th grade science fair, and reluctantly I agreed. My reluctance and my wife’s counsel to say ‘no’ this year was based on our experience last year where we did most of the work maintaining a live ant farm. Yet Peter begged and I finally agreed.

We decided to report on “lactose intolerance” since Peter has to be careful with dairy products.

As feared “Peter’s” Lactose Intolerance Project took a huge amount of MY time. Part of this time was time spent working together, but I also did more after Peter went to bed two different nights. For this time along with my rewording of some of Peter’s work I felt no small measure of guilt—it was supposed to be his project but here I was doing most of the work. As much as I had resisted entering the science fair in the first place, once we had committed, I wanted “his” project to look great.

Without consulting Peter I went hunting for great graphics online and purchased photo paper for all the information pages. I also supplemented the material he gathered with some of my own gathered from additional web sites.

Did you know, for instance, that the bodies of most people radically scale back the production the enzyme (lactase) used to breakdown the primary sugar in dairy products (lactose) just a few after birth? Or that lactose intolerance is directly linked to ethnic background? In a 1972 study published in the Scientific American, 100% of Native Americans, 98% of Thais, 93% of Chinese, and % of African Americans in the study group tested as lactose intolerant. Contrast this with only 12% of Caucasian Americans, 6% of Swiss, and 2% of Swedes. Apparently a chromosome level mutation passed down through Northern European ethnic groups allows them to happily continue to consume large amounts of fresh dairy products long after every other ethnic group would be groaning, gassing, and bloating in misery. And here is an even more intriguing factoid… the same is true for cats! European cats have the mutation as humans allowing them to consume milk when cats from other parts of the world—especially Asian breeds—are lactose intolerant.

Just whose 4^th grade science project was this I wondered as I climbed into bed last night. Then this morning it hit me that twenty-seven years ago my dad helped me build a vacuum out of a coffee can and a small electric fan, and that project all those years ago could really be called his science project. Today, the project Peter turned in was mine… twenty-seven years after the one I received credit for from my science teacher Ms. Kelly.

If things continue to follow this pattern in another 25-30 years Peter will do most of the work for a project that his son or daughter will take to school.

Maybe I don’t need to feel guilty for working so hard last night on “Peter’s” project; maybe I was simply finishing an assignment I received a grade for thirty years ago. And if so... for the record, Ms. Kelly, I tried to do “our” best work.

The Idea of Travel

I like the idea of travel. I actually love the idea of travel. Yet this last week in Costa Rica has forced me to ask if I actually like travel itself or just some pseudo-Platonic idea of travel. In reality travel is often uncomfortable.

Talk to anyone who travels regularly for business and you typically get a long list of travel woes (the pessimists) or a short list of strategies to minimize discomfort (the optimists). Those in this second category (the optimists) will suggest tips for packing light and tactics to help on long plane flights (neck pillows, how to score an exit row, an IPOD, or a stiff drink). They will advise on ways protect your passport and make sure your purse isn’t snatched. They will tell you of a great place to eat and whether you can safely drink the water in such-and-such a spot. These are the optimists. Everyone else simply shudders and gives you a look that clearly communicates something like: “I hope your will is up-to-date and your medical insurance pays for a medivac chopper in Ecuador.”

As an actual traveler, I find myself schizophrenic. I’m unbearably optimistic in the planning stage, and utterly certain the night before departure that I will die on this trip. On that last night I ponder at length the story of a rabbi who everyday would tearfully bid farewell to his children and wife before leaving for the kosher slaughter house. He did this each day because he was convinced that he would do something wrong during the day and God would strike him down.

I don’t like the rabbi’s the view of God, but I understand it because in large part it remains mine. My default view of God is one that easily accepts God as in possession of unlimited power… so far so good. Scripture supports a stunning affirmation of God as all powerful. Yet like the rabbi I tend to fear that God’s exercise of power will be capricious and potentially vindictive.

And for some reason travel stirs up my existential fears. Out of the routine of work and home I find myself even less certain of God’s goodness and care for me and others. I do forget my fear in moments of delight: as I taste new foods (fried plantains with black bean puree and guacamole), peek over the rim of a volcano (Irazu with its bubbling and florescent green sulfur water), or spend time with gracious and caring people (men like our Costa Rican bus driver Walter). Yet if I’m honest there is discomfort even on the most successful of trips.

I’d like that to make more attentive rather than fearful… more open rather than sour… and use those moments unease to remind me that life this side of eternity all is travel.

Language Shame

Last week I traveled with a team from our congregation and a group of high school students from Gonzaga Prep to work with the ministry wing of Pura Vida Coffee. It was a rough week for me personally since I ended up feverish and coughing so violently for three days that I nearly cracked a rib. I hope others felt better about the week.

On February 12th (the third day of the trip and... full disclosure... in the middle of my fever) I wrote the following:

I know a few Spanish words, but quake at the thought of putting together a sentence “en Espanõl.” Thus here in Costa Rica I find myself in a place of dependence on others who know what I don’t. Far more of the Costa Ricans are effectively bi-lingual while I have arrived down here to “help,” and I can’t even talk to them. And far from irritating me, what I feel more is shame: shame that I have so much materially and have done so little with it, shame that I don’t even know when I am offending someone, shame that I am imposing myself on these people. I keep wondering what they think of me… of us.

I don’t yet know the average income in Costa Rica.

I don’t know what percentage of the population could stay at Colaye Apartotel without hardship.

I don’t know how many Costa Rican’s think $10 U.S. is a screaming good deal for lobster.

How can this shame become humility? How might I truly give something in the next few days that those I come in contact with need to receive?